


Shooting the cuff

by Lilliburlero



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Class Issues, Gen, Gossip, Homophobic Language, Other Warnings May Apply, Period-Typical Attitudes, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 13:08:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19870159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: There are things about the men onTerrorthat everyone knows, and other things that only some people know.





	Shooting the cuff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disenchanted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disenchanted/gifts).



> In the vicinity of disenchanted's prompt: Gibson, Jopson, class issues.

Everyone knew that Jopson's mother was a laudanum fiend. No-one now remembered how they knew: probably her sister lived on the same street as another fellow's aunt, or something of that sort, and the unexpectedly juicy intelligence, disclosed during one of those protracted sessions in which the men exchanged feebly predictable coincidences in order to feel closer to home and to one another in the vast, wicked, frigid wastes, percolated through _Terror_ as if driven by the pump in her desalination system. But unlike supplies of fresh and heated water, dogs and stewards, it did not travel aft, and a curious kink in transmission, produced by the peculiar tact that extreme proximity to his mates enforces on even the roughest sailor, prevented it ever getting back to Jopson himself.

Mr Hickey was censorious. So total was his reputation for depravity that some were surprised by his vehement denunciation of intoxicants and those susceptible to them, forgetting that although he took care to swallow his grog in a single, hearty draught, he could not suppress a maidenly wince afterwards. A few noted the disparity between his harsh words for the unfortunate Mrs Jopson and the high regard in which he seemed to hold their increasingly soused Old Man; Sergeant Tozer was blunt enough to voice the observation. 

Hickey smirked in his aggravating way, as if he were folding up and enbosoming some very advanced thought. Not so surprising, thought William Gibson mirthlessly, that a caulker's mate should have a _privy_ smile in his _head_. That was almost certainly the sort of witticism that Lieutenant Irving would frown upon as indecent; what came out of a man's arse in accordance with Nature was almost as horrifying to him as what might go up it in flout of her. Gibson knew that Mr Irving had left the Service to fail at sheep-farming in Australia, which sounded like failing at hauling coals to Newcastle, and had to beg their Lordships to take him back. Probably other stewards knew that too, probably Jopson knew it, but it was not a thing _everybody_ knew. 

'You see, the thing about Him,' Hickey expounded, rising to his feet, 'is he's not really helpless before it. Every sot says he can stop whenever he likes, but he really can. That's the sort of man he is: he can actually do the things that everyone says they would do, if the case was desperate enough, but in fact they would never have the brass neck.' 

He looked at the seated others modestly, through lashes remarkably thick and dark for someone of his colouring. Gibson knew Hickey well enough to understand that this was the point where someone was supposed to say, 'You're like that too, Cornelius.' When they were close he would have been the one to say it, not sure if he meant it, but meaning the silent thing, which was _I love you_. 

No-one said it, because Gibson kept his distance from Hickey now. He stood just outside the circle of light that Hickey commanded, half-hidden by a bulkhead. The audience shifted, as if they were the withers of a great beast disturbed in sleep. They were troubled men on a troubled ship on a troubled expedition, but they were not yet ready to hear open discussion of their captains' qualities as leaders. Hickey sank to the accompaniment of the half-articulate noises made by people who want to be somewhere else, and in less than a minute the group had dispersed. Hickey's expression mingled satisfaction and nonplus, as if he had accidentally and unexpectedly swallowed a large jujube that he wanted to suck and savour down to a flinder. Gibson recognised it as the face Hickey made when he was convincing himself that everything was going to plan. 

Gibson turned away, unable to stop himself imagining a conversation in which he confronted Hickey, told him that he, if no-one else, understood why he hated Jopson. It was envy: Hickey wanted to do Jopson's job, render intimate service to the Captain, anticipate his needs, receive his confidences. He imagined Hickey, unHickeyishly defeated by his perceptiveness, admitting immediately this was so, confessing that he wanted to do to the Captain the things he had done to Gibson. He wanted to bite the Captain's nipples hard enough to make him fear he'd tear them clean off, he wanted to make the Captain gag on his prick, he wanted to frig between the Captain's milky Irish thighs. He was aroused by the thought, except he was no longer sure what the thought was, or who was thinking it, whose head, rusty or black, was crushed against whose groin, carbolic-clean or soapshy, whose skin, pale and pocked, touched whose, sallow and darkly furred— 

Icy water soaked his calves; he looked down to see a still-frozen lump on his boot-top. There were buckets on the boards, and a dark, serge-clad figure still straightening up after depositing them there. A waxy face suddenly pushed up into his; a theatrical face, a face from a melodrama, or the grim visage of an off-duty comedian. In the Captain's presence it was soft and ingratiating, more front-of-house. Maybe he only thought this because the first thing he had found out about the Captain's steward was that he had grown up just along the Marylebone Road from the Yorkshire Stingo, with its musicians and acrobats, gambling tables, bowling greens, and women boxing with their bubs out. 

'Yes, Mr Gibson? Do you _want_ something?' Jopson snapped. 

He did not. He floated free of all need, even his lewd fantasy had no component of desire in it. It just was, sufficient unto itself, with no thought for any but the present moment. Perhaps that was the way to survive this sojourn in hell, more like the beasts which furnished the Captain's table than the man who sat at the head of it. 

'Then I _suggest_ that you serve the wardroom, as is your function on this ship, and stop _loitering_ about here while I am _trying_ to haul water for the Captain's bath.' 

Jopson's teeth bit down on his lower lip, making the final sound a furious f, which Cockney mannerism would have earned little Billy Gibson, from a home where there was sometimes nothing with which to fill your mouth but an initial aitch or terminal G, a clip around the ear. 

Gibson inclined his head and smiled insolently, one of a small repertoire of gestures he had copied from Cornelius, and—in his opinion—perfected, and turned on his heel.

'Yeah, that's right, fuck off, you idle spigot-licking molly margery.' Jopson's parting shot, calibrated to reach him without penetrating the panelling of the great cabin, rang in Gibson's ears for the rest of the watch, like a gun salute.

**Author's Note:**

> The historical Thomas Jopson was from Marylebone, and the Yorkshire Stingo was a famous pub, with a pleasure garden and entertainments, in that district.


End file.
